


I could dot the I's and you could cross the T's

by wizened_cynic



Series: Dress Your Family in Kevlar and Armani [9]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic, Marriage Proposal, Pregnancy, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 21:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The funny thing is, Rossi has done this three times before, but this is the first and only time he isn't nervous, not even a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I could dot the I's and you could cross the T's

**Author's Note:**

> In which there are tacos, vomit, and a marriage proposal. Hopelessly schmoopy. Title from Zooey Deschanel & M Ward.

Emily's adamant against telling anyone about the baby until the timing's right. She doesn't specify exactly when that would be, so it could mean after the first trimester or when she goes into labor on the jet or when Rossi retires a second time and comes back to visit the office with a tiny little person in his arms.

Rossi doesn't push it, because he understands: it took Emily another ten days and half dozen positive pregnancy tests to believe that no, it wasn't a fluke: she really _is_ pregnant. Half the time he wakes up terrified by the knowledge that this is really happening, and the other half of the time he wakes up terrified by the prospect that it might not, after all.

So they keep it a secret between them, nothing to show for but Emily slowly growing out of her jeans and Rossi being in charge of cleaning Sergio's litter box and the tiny white flicker of a heartbeat on an ultrasound photo.

They tell Hotch, of course, and Hotch, predictably, shits a brick.

Brick-shitting aside, he is happy for them and he looks at Rossi like he's proud of Rossi for finally making some personal growth in his old age, but also very much like he would easily and eagerly end Rossi's life if Rossi screws this up.

If the other members of the team notice anything, they don't let it slip. Rossi likes to think that he and Emily are doing a pretty bang-up job of covering this pregnancy up. For starters, he has managed to rein in his instincts to hover, while Emily has managed to display almost no symptoms of actually being pregnant, much to her own dismay.

"You are the only woman I've ever known who would complain about not having morning sickness," he says, shaking his head at her as they leave the clinic after the ten-week appointment.

"I feel like I'm being deprived of one of the quintessential experiences of childbearing," Emily retorts. She twists her fingers together and that night she falls asleep with one of the thousand pregnancy books they've managed to acquire within the last five weeks on her chest, opened to the page that says, to paraphrase, morning sickness is good because it means a woman's body is recognizing the pregnancy.

Rossi rests his hand against her cheek for a long time, feeling the rise and fall of her deep, even breathing. _Don't take this away from her_ , he prays. _Don't take them away from me._

The morning sickness finally hits when they're working a case in the Florida Everglades, surveying the dump site where the bodies of four ten-year-old girls lie in various stages of decomp. The fact that it's almost December does nothing to stop nature from doing its wonders, and Rossi isn't sure what sets Emily off --- if it's the sweet, rotten scent of putrefaction or the sight of the maggots and the botflies or the fact that these girls, discarded carelessly like trash, are --- _were_ \--- somebody's daughters.

"Rossi," Emily mumbles as she steps away from the burial site, her face turning a sick shade of pale. "Rossi, I'm gonna ---" Her eyes water as she tries to hold back the nausea and he can tell she's thinking _DO NOT LET ME CONTAMINATE THE CRIME SCENE_ , so without thinking he takes off his jacket and holds it to her face as she lowers her head and begins to vomit.

"There you go," he croons, rubbing Emily's back as she throws up her lunch into half of Rossi's favorite Armani suit, and it is at that moment that he decides that he is going to marry her.

 

*

"I'll pay for the dry cleaners," she says later, on the way back to D.C.

"You'll pay for a new suit," he tells her, for the sake of everyone within earshot, which is everyone on the jet, plus Garcia over video link.

"We all have one of these days," Morgan says as Hotch's eyebrows knit together and Reid plays with his maps and JJ, well, JJ is totally _onto_ them. There is no question about it.

It doesn't really matter, because there is no explanation for the kind of morning sickness Emily has, which is more like twenty-four hour sickness, except the obvious. Garcia squeals so loudly dogs start howling at the moon and Morgan stares at Rossi like he can't decide whether he is really impressed or that he needs to defend Emily's honor. Reid smiles his enigmatic smile and rocks on his feet, watching from his depth. JJ mentions about hand-me-downs from Henry and adds, smugly, "I totally called it. Your breasts gave you away."

They hit twelve weeks and start to breathe easier once Dr. Chang pronounces a good, strong heartbeat and everything looking the way they should. "Very healthy baby," she says, rubbing the wand over the gentle curve of Emily's belly. "You two aren't looking so hot though. Look, I think she's pumping her fist at us."

"She?" Rossi asks.

"Or he," Dr. Chang corrects. "It's still too soon to tell. I could hazard a guess but I wouldn't bet on it. What do you think?"

Emily shrugs. "I don't really care, as long as it's healthy."

"Good answer," Dr. Chang says. "I hear that one a lot. Never gets old though. Want to listen to his --- I'm all for gender equality, you can see --- heartbeat?"

"Like that's even a valid question," Rossi says, because seriously. He is paying this obstetrician more than he paid his first wife in alimony just so he can gather all the intel on his kid because he or she arrives. He wants to know what he's in for, though he's starting to realize that even with all the research in the world, he might never be fully prepared for it when it finally hits.

Their baby's heartbeat sounds like galloping horses, fast and iambic, and he could listen to it forever, but apparently these Doppler machines cost a fortune and Dr. Chang isn't about to sell him hers.

 

*

His sisters are scattered across the continent, because the universe might implode from the sheer amount of hair products and sassiness present in one single location at one single moment, but they have never gotten over their teenage habit of talking at each other, to each other, _over_ each other. Only now they do it on Skype, which means Rossi can't simply pretend he's listening. He actually has to feign interest.

Tess is calling from Indonesia, where she and Vinnie are on the Bali leg of their Eat, Pray, Love tour, so her connection is sketchy but that doesn't stop her from extolling the majestic spa treatment of which she has been at the receiving end. Val has midterms to grade, and one of Bridget's boys is whining in the background about why there isn't anything to eat in the entire house. "Try looking in the fridge, honey," Bridget says to him. "Y'know, behind all that food."

"What is it, Davey?" Val asks, because she is the oldest and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

"Is he getting married again?" Bridget says after telling Lucas that no, he cannot order pizza when dinner will be ready in 20 minutes.

"I CAN'T SEE ANY OF YOU!" Tess hollers.

"IT'S OKAY, WE CAN HEAR YOU FINE," Bridget hollers back, because she is the baby and gets away with everything.

"Let the boy talk," Val says and the rest of them fall into a grudging silence.

So Rossi tells them.

They start crying.

Well, Val and Bridget do. It's hard to tell with Tess, she is nothing but pixels at this point, but Rossi can hear sobs and then Vinnie is saying, "He's _what_? Are you shitting me? David, are you fucking shitting me?"

"Are you going to marry her?" Bridget asks once she has composed herself.

"I don't know if she'll marry me," Rossi answers, and it's true. He doesn't. It's not something they have talked about and to be honest, even though he's been thinking about it on and off since that day in the Everglades with the ruined Armani jacket, and even though he considers himself a damn good profiler, best of the best out there, he doesn't have a good handle on this one.

"Why wouldn't she marry you?" Tess asks.

Val snorts, even _Dave_ snorts, because Angie sent him a Christmas card the year after their divorce was finalized, setting out a plethora of reasons why a woman would not want to marry him.

One topic merges into another and soon Bridget is asking, "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

Before Rossi can answer, Tess jumps in, "Maybe it'll be a girl! We haven't had a girl in --- my god, how old is Michaela now?"

"Twenty-four," Val reveals of her daughter, who is getting her MBA at Columbia and will probably be richer than Rossi in a couple of years.

"Twenty-four." Tess sighs. "I love boys, I'm glad we have so many boys, but we need a girl around here."

They all agree on that, as if Rossi has any control over anything anymore, and Val has to go back to her midterms and Bridget needs to fix dinner and Tess needs to have more scented oils rubbed onto her skin. This leaves him with Vinnie, who is thoughtfully nursing a beer and who finally says what Rossi has been thinking deep down in the sewers of his psyche, "What the fuck are you doing, Dave?"

"I don't know," Dave says helplessly. He's a smart man, he knows, and even smarter for falling in love with a woman like Emily Prentiss, but that part was easy. The hard part is figuring out what to do next. Likewise, proposing is easy, but making a marriage work is something he has never been able to do, and let's not even get started about being a father. He knows everything there is about making a baby (except maybe not even that, given how long it took for Emily to get knocked up) but raising one to become a functional, well-adjusted human being --- he doesn't even know how to begin.

"If you're having a midlife crisis, you're not doing it right," Vinnie tells him severely. "Kids ruin lives, pal."

"You have _four_ ," Rossi points out.

"Exactly," says Vinnie. "I know what I'm talking about. They will ruin your life. You will never be the same again. You will make yourself do terrible shit things that nobody should ever do, because they're your kids and you can't help yourself. They're loud and they piss the bed and they break stuff and they have soccer games and karate tournaments and fucking track meets you kill yourself to go to. And hey, I was young. You, my friend, you're old."

"Thanks. I really needed the pep talk."

"I'm just saying. You're insane. She must be one hell of a woman."

Rossi feels himself spontaneously breaking into a smile. "She is."

Vinnie sighs and takes a swig of his beer. "You should have a daughter," he muses. "Yeah, you'll be good with a daughter. You can't have a boy, you won't have the energy for it. Boys are nightmares when they're young, but they're less high-maintenance when they're teenagers. Girls are the opposite. You'll have it easy when she's little, and when she's a teenager --- well, you'll probably be dead by then."

"I hope not." He's known Vinnie long enough to appreciate his blunt honesty, but it doesn't change that Vinnie has hit the nail on the head of one of Rossi's growing fears.

"Maybe you'll find a way to live forever," Vinnie says. "They have that effect on you. Kids. But yeah, I can see you with a girl. Definitely."

 

*

 

Emily starts looking pregnant, really pregnant, midway through the second trimester. She gives up on her jeans and starts shopping for maternity clothes, coming home ("Your place," she still calls it, and Dave wants to tell her, "It could be your place too, if you wanted.") with tops and dresses and pants that she complains are the least attractive things ever.

"I agree," Rossi says, because agreeing with pregnant women tends to make them happy, but Emily frowns, and so he makes it up to her that afternoon, shows her that maternity clothes might be hideous but pregnant women? Especially _this_ pregnant woman, with her soft skin and full, ripe breasts and round belly full of baby, his baby? She might be the sexiest thing Rossi has ever seen in the world, the most decadent thing he has ever laid his eyes upon.

Afterwards, when they are both coming down from their orgasms, he might have asked her to marry him, except the baby chooses this time to start kicking like crazy, effectively stealing Rossi's thunder. It's not fair; even the most thought-out, romantic proposal in the world can't compare with _that_. Vinnie wasn't kidding when he said that kids ruin lives.

"Do you feel that?" Emily says in awe as she places his hand against the swell of her belly. There is nothing at first, and then a soft _thump_ , rendering Rossi speechless with wonder. _Holy mother of Christ,_ he thinks. They did this. They made a _person_.

At the twenty-two-week check up, Dr. Chang once again gives the usual proclamation that both mom and baby are doing wonderfully, but this time she crosses her arms and gives them both a long, stern glower. "I am now going to do an ultrasound," she tells them, "and you two will decide whether or not you want to know the sex of your baby. This will be the last chance. I am not going through this again. Either you find out today, or you find out on his or her birthday. What's it going to be?"

Rossi looks Emily and Emily looks back at him, and he says, "It doesn't matter," because it doesn't, not to him and certainly not to Emily. Given how hard they tried for this kid, how much they both wanted it, it could have three arms and they would love it just as much. It might make shopping a bit more difficult but certainly Garcia would be able to knit a whole wardrobe for him or her.

"That's not what I asked," Dr. Chang says irritably. She looks at Emily.

"If it doesn't matter, then let's find out," Emily says.

Rossi gapes at her. " _Seriously?_ After that whole schpeel last time when you said you wanted to be surprised?"

"I have decided I've had enough surprises for a while," she tells him. "Plus Garcia and JJ are going to explode if we don't find out soon. That's two babysitters we're going to lose."

Dr. Chang snaps her fingers for their attention. "Have you decided?" she says, sounding eerily like a game show host.

"Let's find out," Rossi says, and squeezes Emily's hand.

The doctor moves the wand over Emily's belly and soon the baby shows up on the screen. The image reminds Rossi of those magic 3-D pictures where you can't see what the hell it is until you press your nose up to it and look at it cross-eyed. He stares at the galaxy of gray swirls, nodding as Dr. Chang points out the head and the back and the butt, not really seeing any of what she's saying. The butt, maybe, a little. It's a cute butt.

"Ready, guys?" Dr. Chang asks, and presses gently into one part of Emily's stomach, making her --- and the baby --- squirm. " _Ohmygod, don't do that_ ," Emily gasps. For a minute Rossi panics, thinking she's in pain, but she reassures him that she's fine except for the full bladder she's keeping for the ultrasound and the fact that the slightest jostling is making her want to pee herself.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," Rossi confesses as Dr. Chang points to a spot on the screen.

"Neither do I," says Emily, and when she smiles at him, he believes he can do this. He believes he can do anything.

"Your daughter is so ashamed of you both."

"It's a girl?" Emily says.

"It's a girl," Rossi repeats giddily, because thank god it's a girl, his sisters have bought a lot of pink shit already.

Emily looks like she can't decide whether to laugh or to cry so she does both. "A girl," she says, gulping back a laugh as tears spill down her cheeks. "What are we going to do with a girl? Oh, god, she's going to hate me when she's fifteen years old."

"I'll be _dead_ when she's fifteen years old," Rossi says, laugh-crying himself as he remembers what Vinnie said.

Emily turns around and snarls, "Do not even joke about that, David Rossi, or I will _end_ you."

Dr. Chang just stands there, shaking her head at them in resignation.

 

*

Emily stops taking the jet once she reaches the third trimester. "I know it's safe to fly," she says, carefully balancing a cup of yogurt on her massive stomach, "but it's just so goddamn _uncomfortable_. No thanks, I'll just be here hanging out with my girl P.G. and we'll do our magic from the safe, air-conditioned confines of the B.A.U."

Garcia claps her hands together with demon-like glee. "We can look at baby shoes online! Oh, sweet kittens and poodles, I saw the cutest pair the other day, I _have_ to get them for the littlest Rossi ---" she catches Rossi staring at her and quickly amends, " _after_ we finish all our important, serious work, of course."

It's a short flight to La Guardia, but Rossi misses both of his girls and he openly sulks through it. Reid tries to cheer him up by giving him a French lesson. "Most people consider _tu me manques_ to mean _I miss you_ ," Reid tells him during a moment of quiet when JJ is done presenting the case and Hotch has figured out who is going to do what and where. "But translated literally, that phrase actually means, _You are missing from me_."

Reid is shit at subtlety. Even Morgan looks embarrassed for him.

The French anecdote strikes Rossi as something that Emily would know and something that is perfectly spot-on in describing his situation. _She is missing from me_ , he thinks.

Emily stopped working in the field as soon as they announced the pregnancy, at her own volition because she wasn't about to take any chances. For the same reason, she refused to do the amniocentesis, even after being subject to a long speech about advanced maternal age and likelihood of chromosomal defects and how the chance of miscarrying is slim to none. "Nope," she insisted, and Rossi respected that. "There is no way I am letting anyone near this kid with a giant needle. If she has two heads, she has two heads. We'll deal with it."

But until now, she has always been with them on cases, even after she was relegated to staying at the local precinct when she stopped being able to fit in a bullet-proof vest.

"My boobs got too big for the Kevlar," is the way she puts it with a smile so bright that Rossi has to taste it, every time.

Emily is missing from him.

Rossi remembers something his father told him once, when he was about seven years old and in second grade at St. Francis Xavier's. They were learning the story of creation and how humans were made in the image of God. God made Adam first, and then when Adam needed a companion, God took one of Adam's ribs and made Eve out of it. "They are really the same person, just apart," Dave explained to his father, pleased when his dad nodded in approval.

"You remember that, David," he told him. "Anyone who tells you that women are subservient to men is wrong. Women have the piece that men are missing, and that's why men have to go looking for it. They gotta try to find the right piece and the right woman holding it." It would be years before Rossi understood what the word "subservient" mean, but the rest of the story always stuck with him.

Hid dad never said anything about how hard it was to find the right piece --- he and Mama made it look so damn easy --- so through a series of trial and error, Rossi has ended up with three ex-wives. Now he has a pregnant girlfriend and he decides that it's time, he's gotta do something about it before he loses all the right pieces, before they end up missing from him, however the fuck you would say that in French. (Emily would know.)

They should get married in Kevlar, Rossi thinks later that evening, when the jet takes them back to Washington. They caught the UNSUB just as he was about to dump his most recent victim into the East River. Not a total win, but not a lose either.

Yes, Kevlar, definitely, not because Emily wouldn't look amazing in a white dress, but because he wants everybody to know that he isn't just marrying his girlfriend, his lover, the mother of his child. She is all those things, but she is also his best friend, his colleague, his partner out in the field where monsters prowl and shots are fired, and he knows she will always have his back, just like he will always have hers.

When he gets home, the light is on in the kitchen, but there is a note saying that Emily has gone back to her apartment to pack up the last of her boxes. She hasn't officially moved in, though her things have slowly made their way into his house over the last year and there is a fully-decorated nursery down two doors down from what used to be his bedroom but what he now thinks of as theirs. It's too late for dinner, but he knows a Mexican place near Emily's brownstone that opens twenty-four hours and serves a mean taco. He puts down his go bag, takes a quick shower, and makes the drive to Emily's place.

Nobody answers when he rings the bell, so he tries knocking. When that doesn't elicit a response, he starts to worry. He checks his voicemail to see if she's said anything about heading back to his place. She hasn't, but Tess has left a message about heirloom baptismal gowns, and he is about to pull a Morgan and break down the damn door when it suddenly opens and he and Emily scare the shit out of themselves and each other.

"What the hell, Rossi," she yells, hand on her Glock. "Don't scare me like that. I'm seven months pregnant. I _have a gun_."

"I'm scaring _you_?" Rossi snaps back. "You're the one with the gun!"

She throws her head back and starts to laugh, a whole-body laugh that requires her to brace herself in the doorway to keep herself steady. It's a sound and a sight that Rossi has gotten addicted to, but he would happily stand here and listen to her laugh for hours, but he is starving and could really use a chicken fajita.

"Do you want to marry me?" he says, and it takes a moment for both of them realize that he did not, as he thought he was going to, ask if she wanted to go for Mexican.

Emily looks shell-shocked, then hesitant, then suspicious, and her smile compresses into a thin, pressed line as she says, "Did you just ask me to marry you?"

The funny thing is, Rossi has done this three times before, but this is the first and only time he isn't nervous, not even a little. He thought he would be, but he isn't, so maybe he's still capable of surprising himself. Who could've guessed.

"Actually," he clarifies, "I asked if you wanted to marry me. I intend to marry you anyway, but it would less creepy if you actually agreed to it."

Emily speaks slowly, testing each word before she says them. "I'm seven months pregnant, Rossi."

"I am aware of that, Prentiss."

"I have a _gun_."

"You have made that very clear."

"You do not surprise a seven-month pregnant woman like this. Not when she also has a gun. Not when she's starving and, Jesus, Rossi, I thought you were going to ask if I wanted to get a burger or something."

"Tacos," he says. "Can we get tacos?"

"Do I want to marry you, or do I want tacos?"

"I don't see how the two are mutually exclusive."

"You're a fucking idiot," Emily says. She looks pissed off, and also like she's about to cry. "I want tacos. And of course I want to marry you."

 

*

 

When they go to apply for their marriage license, the clerk listens with rapt interest as Rossi rattles off the dates of his previous marriages and the dates on which the corresponding divorces were finalized.

"You're _still_ going to marry him?" the clerk asks Emily in disbelief.

"Well, he did knock me up," Emily tells him with a straight face. "He's also very rich. And I love him."

The clerk rolls his eyes at both of them but proceeds to stamp all the requisite forms and tells them it will take three days before the marriage license can be issued. "Gives you some time to think," he says to Emily.

To Rossi, he says, "Now, if I were you, I'd just drive over to Virginia where there's no waiting period and get it done before she changes her mind."

"Thank you," Rossi growls.

"I guess I'll see you again in three days," Emily says to the clerk, with an air of certainty that nearly knocks Rossi off his feet.

"Lucky you," the clerk says to him.

"Lucky me," Rossi agrees.

 


End file.
